Remains of the Day: Fab 5 Freddy, Pianos, Lucien Freud

A historical graffiti wall, which includes work by Fab 5 Freddy, Futura 2000 and (possibly) Jean Michel Basquiat, was recently discovered and revealed in SoHo last night.

“There’s a growing coterie of movie people these days who argue that ‘serious’ films no longer constitute a ‘serious’ business. The mission of movies, they remind us, is to entertain, not enlighten, which explains why so many so-called message movies tended to underperform at the box office this year. Hence the kudo race to date has been more about casualties rather than successes.”

Are we burying ourselves in our niches? "As a result of the Internet, we live increasingly in an era of enclaves and niches — much of it voluntary, much of it produced by those who think they know, and often do know, what we’re likely to like. This raises some obvious questions. If people are sorted into enclaves and niches, what will happen to their views? What are the eventual effects on democracy?"

View a slideshow of British realist painter Lucien Freud’s display at the Museum of Modern Art. Roberta Smith: he “has not so much been to break new ground as to dig incessantly deeper into the old. By doing so he has intensified our understanding of figurative painting’s familiar landmarks to the point of discomfort.”